Spool question...

I've been thinking about taking a Ford 9", and converting it to FF, with drive flanges (or hublocks or whatever you want to call them)... theres no doubt abit more to it than cutting the ends off and welding on some FF hubs from a D60 (although I recall seeing a custom built FF 9" with D60 hubs from a shop), but thats another thread in itself.


My Q is about using a spool with the above setup. the obvious reason a spool is such a PITA on the street is that it understeers, and chirps tires around corners, is useless in the ice and snow, and depending on the setting, I'd be willing to bet you could snap a stock axle trying to make a tight turn in a parking lot.... theres probably more but I cant think of it right now...

But heres the idea, if you have a FF rear with manual hubs, If you were to unlock one hub, would it handle better on the street? It seems like a good idea, although I have a few possible problems that I really have no idea on, but am making a poor, uneducated guess on what may be possible (If that makes no sense, i'm sorry, i'm a bit out of it at the moment)...

possible problems-

1) uneven wear on hubs. (do hubs even wear out? I've had bearings, seals, etc. wear out but never the hub/spindle itself wear out. maybe uneven wear on the bearings?)

2) uneven tire wear. (since the same tire is the only one under power it seems to me that it would cause them to wear strange. I suppose that a possible fix could be to alternate which hub is locked every 100 miles or every week... I quess this could potentially solve problem #1 aswell.)

3) messed up steering. (how to explain... how about this... lets say that you have the drivers side hub unlocked... now when you come to make a left turn, you coast into the turn, and theres no chirping since the unlocked hub allows the left tire to turn slower around the corner, but as you accelerate out of the turn the force (drive, torque, load, I cant think of the word at the moment) of the right tire pushes the car to the left, helping you round the curve...

but now if your drivers side hub is still unlocked, and you make a right hand turn, I think things might be abit different... coming into the turn would be similar, since the unlocked hub could spin faster on the outside of the turn, but when you accelerate out of the turn, as the right tire is put under (pick word from above) its going to want to push the car to the left again... and since your turning right, thats abit of a problem..)

maybe I'm over estimating the influence of grip the tires have compared to the ability of the little box in front to point you where your headed... I'm just thinking it'd sort of be like a poor-mans selectable locker, except instead of pushing a button or pulling a lever, you get outta the car and lock your hub... may not be a switch on the fly type setup, but for those of us that want a full time locker that also works ok on the street, it seems to be a viable option to me... I'll have a spool either way so I might just try making a FF and unlock a hub and try it out...
Unless someone has already tried this in which case i'm very interested in your results....

again... if something isnt clear enough, let me know and I'll try to explain better... and if I'm missing a key concept, please let me know... if this is absolutely the stupidest thing you have ever seen,;


please let me know

I doubt very highly that you will snap a Ford 9" shaft with a spool on the street especially if you are making a full floater. You will have to have custom shafts made so you might as well go with alloys which are very strong. Once you have everything built and together go out and try driving with one hub. If it feels funny to you, go lock the other one and deal with the spool on the street. Its not THAT bad as there are people on here running them.

AARON

ya i think your way over concerned about the spool. my d35 broke its spiders so i welded it, lasted a couple months before the ring and pinion went out(got chiped when the spiders broke) then i got my 8.8 and welding it was the first thing i did to it. ive ran 2 differnt types of 33s, timberline mt radails, and ltbs. if you only have 20 psi or less in your tires it chirps a little in parking lots, but if you have 30 or 35 you can barely notice its there in parking lots. anytime your going faster than 10 miles an hour on the road its completley invisible. my jeep is my daily driver altho it only moves about 20 or 30 miles a day. thats alot of trouble and money just to have traction and be able to drive on the street. prolly cheaper to just get an 8.8 or 9 and thro an arb in it.

kolby

I'd bet that by the time you complete such a project, it'd be much cheaper to install an ARB. In any event, the torque steer you're concerned about is exactly what you get from an automatic locker (like a Detroit or any of the lunchbox lockers). Under high traction conditions, the inside wheel is driven under power while the outside wheel freewheels at a faster speed, being driven by the friction with the road. It feels slightly different at first, but you soon forget all about it.

as for wear on hubs and tires, just change which one is locked everytime you fill up with gas. as for handling, on dry pavement it would be no worse than an auto locker, on snow, ice or gravel things would get really weird, so lock both hubs for that.

unless you have an alignment jig and can do all the labor yourself it would be much cheaper to get an auto locker or selectable. you will need to use D60 hub since the 19 spline D44 stuff certainly wouldn't hold up in a rear application. the D60 hubs will limit you to 8-lug and won't be too cheap.

I run a spool in my alloy shafted D44. I don't think there's any way you could break a shaft on the street, unless you were climbing lightpoles or something stupid like that at a meet & greet. If you really plan on running this thing on the street, I'd go with something else. It dosen't take long to get tired of the tire wear and awkward stares in parking lots. I've only driven my rig in the winter once since the spool went in, and all I can say is I'm glad I was locked front & rear so I could back out of the ditch I ended up in. I don't have a clue about wear and whatnot if you unlock one hub, so I'll leave that to someone else.

yeah I was just throwing the idea out there to see if anyone has tried it. I'm sure it would be much cheaper to get an ARB, if your comparing it to using new parts.. I cant see a hub/spindle pair costing that much from a wrecking yard... the custom shafts would probably be the most expensive part, but if your upgrading to an ARB you might aswell throw in decent axles while you've got it up on the stands..

I havent completly laid everything out, but next time I'm at the wrecking yard I'm gonna pull some D60 hubs (and if they have a 9" for cheap enough I'll pick it up too just for test purposes) so far I'm thinking a narrowed 9" with a plate to adapt to the spindle bolt pattern, then think of it sort of like a front axle from there on out... except for the custom axles, which in theory should cost less than normal axles since its pretty much just a piece of round stock, although its probably the same. (I dont know but it might be possible to turn down the end of a 9" axle and have it resplined for the hubs, but that'd probably be more work than its worth).. then cap it all off with a set of warn full floater hub locks (p/n 38786 i think)...

again i'm just thinking here, I'm sure theres things I've overlooked..

let me know what junkyard has D60 fronts lying around

If you use a narrow 9" and get shafts from a full-size 9" it may have enough length and not neck-down so that you would be able to repline those. It's good in theory, but I would bet things will add up quick in a manner that it would be easier/cheaper to go a different route.

another thought is stock Toyota Aisin hubs are very strong, they are 30 spline and with a slight dowel mod are holding up fine to 40" Iroks on front axles. I would use them with confidence up to 36s on a normal XJ.

HJ88 said:

My Q is about using a spool with the above setup. the obvious reason a spool is such a PITA on the street is that it understeers, and chirps tires around corners, is useless in the ice and snow, and depending on the setting, I'd be willing to bet you could snap a stock axle trying to make a tight turn in a parking lot.... theres probably more but I cant think of it right now...

Click to expand...

I've been running a spool for a year. I've had it in rain, snow, and lots of parking lots. The ONE time I can think of where it exhibited understeer was in mud. (I've got MT/Rs, so honestly, I had no business being anywhere neear mud. Besides, mud sucks.)

In ice and snow, when you're on the gas, I think an automatic locker should be locking up for you anyway, and it'll work just like a spool. In 2wd, I've had some fun heading up a hill and letting it get sideways. In 4wd, though, it's always gone right up for me.

Chirping the tires around corners, who cares? Let the car drives stare at you - you're in a Jeep. Your concern shouldn't be a little bit of noise, it should be the speed at which you'll burn through a nice set of brand new tires.

I am very stupid on the street - I've got 4.88s and I like to use them. Some people have seen me lift the drivers front tire on sharp left turns because I like the go pedal. I have never been worried about breaking a shaft in a parking lot.

Now, if you look closely at my ROTM entry this month, you'll notice that I'm pulling my spool in favor of a Detroit. The ONLY real reason for this is tire wear. I've got a set of street tires, but I don't really like running them because they're 32s, and my regular tires are 35s. If I had a set of 33s or 35s as street tires, to go with my wheeling 35s, I'd run the spool until it failed....oh wait, a spool will never fail.

The reason for this long-ass post that's not really related to your idea:
I think you're basing this whole single-drive-wheel hybrid axle on a false premise. If you can look past the tire wear, I think a spool is really well behaved and not that bad.

Phil said:

Chirping the tires around corners, who cares? Let the car drives stare at you - you're in a Jeep. Your concern shouldn't be a little bit of noise, it should be the speed at which you'll burn through a nice set of brand new tires...

If you can look past the tire wear, I think a spool is really well behaved and not that bad.

Click to expand...

x2

I put approx 25,000 (mostly paved road, some easy trail) miles on my 44 spool, and agree with Phil... BUT my next project will have something else in there.

Woody